The Display information about previous logons during user logon policy setting controls whether the system displays a message about previous logons and logon failures to the user. This message must be acknowledged by the user before the user is presented with the Windows desktop.

If this information cannot be displayed and acknowledged, the user will not see the Windows desktop. Only domain controllers in Windows Server 2008 functional level domains can provide this kind of information. If the user account belongs to a domain that is based on an earlier operating system, the user will be blocked when this policy is set. Therefore, you should not enable this policy setting if user accounts belong to domains that are not at the Windows Server 2008 domain functional level.

Assume that you do not want to enforce this policy on domain controllers. However, you do want to provide information about previous logons and logon failures. In this case, you can set the Domain Controllers provide information about previous logons when display is not enabled policy setting on the domain controllers in the Windows Server 2008 functional level domains.